aww you gonna pull the pics thing on me? that's a low blow! I thought about it but it was hot and I was too dirty to touch the camera. The issue was the outer door handle so it was not exiting to pee, but re-entering afer peeing, that was a concern.
Ok, so enter the world of make-believe and I'll tell how I fixed it, and it now works smooth as silk.
Since there was no time to waste, consider it a field repair.
All the screws came out but the one above the outside door handle. I drilled that one's head off, leaving a threaded stub. I couldn't get my big hand up in the door to remove the mechanism and couldn't get it out with a coat hanger or otherwise so I used an air chisel to make a hole. or two. Maybe I can put a plate there later with a cup holder and ahstray..
Upon retrieving the rusted object, I saw that the mechanism is made of stampings and held together by bent-over through-slot tabs. I took it inside the Futuronics GRM-23 repair shop (aka the shelter) and pulled out some tools. I was able to carefully! un-bend the tabs and disassemble the mechanism.
There are several odd-shaped pieces, like a fun little rust puzzle. The bolt of the lock is held out by a coil spring and part of the stamping has a protrusion facing the same way as the bolt, that curves down to the backing plate near the outer handle shaft area to form a working surface.
The mechanism that moves this via the outside handle is made of three pieces. The top cover, which was removed by straightening the tabs, a piece of stamping that is more or less like a square-ish washer but has other functions, and a pawl with three short radial tabs. One of the tabs moves against the working surface of the bolt stamping to push the bolt in against the spring pressure. The pawl has a square hole to engage the end of the outside door handle shaft.
The bolt-pushing work surface of the pawl was so worn down that it was like a dull knife edge or like the edge of a chisel. This allowed the pawl's work tab to slip under the work surface of the bolt stamping; that is, to slip between the bolt stamping and the backing plate. Knowing that there won't be time to get new parts before starting my top secret mission tomorrow, I had to fix it now.
First I bent the bolt stamping's work surface down farther so it actually drags on the backing plate, to help keep the pawls tab from sliding under it. Then I took the pawl to the grinding wheel and zinged the edge off it, making it have a new flat square working surface. The pawl metal is quite soft so a gentle hand at the wheel is a must.
After test-fitting the lock mechanism all back together, I took it apart and used a goodly amount of wheel bearing grease to slather on all the moving and sliding surfaces. Once I was satisfied it was as good as it was going to get (hard to do on the workbench) I put it back in the door. Never has the door handle moved so easily. The missing screw head can be dealt with later.
wiggallAWOL wrote:
Which side is it. I have a driver side door latch that is missing the spring that you can have for postape.
I will take you up on that sir. I'll PM.
